¹ Yeyi number about 20,000 and are the largest single ethnic group in this polyethnic area. Perhaps a third of these Yeyi are culturally indistinguishable from other Tswana and Kgalagadi living in the North West District. The remainder are, in varying degrees, culturally distinct, and it was among this section of Yeyi that I conducted fieldwork for 15 months during 1976 and 1977. Nine of these months were spent in one neighbourhood community which I refer to as “North Valley”. Funds for my research were granted to the University of Manchester by the Social Science Research Council, and I wish to thank both bodies for their generous support. I also wish to thank the Government of Botswana for granting me research permission and helping me in many other ways. Finally, thanks go to Yeyi and others in the North West District in general, and North Valley people in particular. So many names spring to mind that it would be difficult to mention some and not others. Suffice it to say that I am permanently indebted to them for the generous and caring way they looked after me, for teaching me their dying language, for allowing me to delve into their private affairs, and for providing—in an unintended way—the social dramas on which this paper focuses.

² An earlier version of this paper was given to the Social Anthropology seminar at the University of Kent in January, 1980. I should like to thank the participants for their useful comments. In addition special thanks go to Richard Werbner, Peter Fitzpatrick, Simon Roberts and John Comaroff who read earlier versions of this paper and gave very constructive criticism. Any remaining errors or shortcomings are my own.

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⁴¹ Among Yeyi there is a strong belief in a few very dangerous forms of pollution. One of these, oora (literally “womb”/“stomach”), arises from promiscuity among fertile women. Whether she is married or not, a fertile woman is expected to sleep regularly with one man only, especially after her first child. Once pregnant, she is in such a dangerously polluting state that if she sleeps with another man this will kill him. He can seek the help of a traditional doctor, but all the doctor can do is turn the force back towards the woman so that she dies instead. As far as I know, the force of oora pollution can only be redirected and not cancelled out. Yeyi women conventionally observe a year's sexual abstinence following childbirth. During this time it is recognised that her husband might sleep with someone else, preferably with a local woman who is barren. A result is that jealousies arise which place a strain on conjugal relations which are fertile. Just before the incident at the county centre, Beth had completed her year's abstinence. As I understand it, the danger was that, if Beth had been unfaithful and if she had conceived as a result, Moses would have been the one at greatest risk. Rumours circulating after the incident suggested that both Moses and the suspected adulterer had consulted doctors after the event. This was rumour only: when I left the field two months later all three potential victims of oora, Moses, Beth, and the suspected adulterer, were alive and well.

⁴² This comment was a warning on the danger of storing up grudges. Yeyi use the Tswana term ntwa, which normally means war, in order to describe any form of vindictive conflict. Its use here probably refers to the conflict between Moses and Beth at the puberty feast and also to the conflict contained in the discussion at this tribunal. However, it may also refer to the possibility that storing up grudges may lead to the use of sorcery. Certainly this would have been pertinent in the case of Moses, because a few months previously he had retaliated for the theft of his corn by going to a local sorcerer in order to have lightning sent to injure or kill the thief. Hence this comment of Jacob—himself a magical specialist—may have been a double-edged blow at the reputation of Moses.

⁴³ For an explanation of this reference to “killing” see p. 108, n. 41, above.

⁴⁴ No definite conclusion was reached regarding compensation, and this was typical. Compensation is a private matter and in no cases I witnessed was any form of payment made at the hearing, although monetary solutions were sometimes discussed and agreed upon. Most often, plaintiffs display lenience and a lack of hurry because these are concrete ways of expressing trust and neighbourliness. This is why Noah did not mention payment for the multiple wrongs which Moses had admitted to at the beginning—spoiling Noah's day, making Noah's hamlet unhappy, or fighting in Noah's hamlet—but only for the medical expenses incurred in relation to the treatment of the novice. Noah said that they would take the novice to the hospital as this would be cheapest. But others disagreed, saying that traditional medicine would be necessary. Noah resolved this dilemma in genuine neighbourly style by declaring that divination would reveal the correct course of treatment. He then warned Moses and Beth that time would tell what the outcome would be: whether the novice's father's (his sister's son's) family would be large or not. He added that they would “have to pay” for what they had done, i.e. that they would be held responsible.

⁴⁵ Moore, S. F., Law as Process, London, 1978, 57.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ibid.

⁴⁷ Gulliver, op. cit., 1979, 27.